xATHERS AND CHILDREN
political men of the days of Alexander, who
used to prepare for an evening party at Madame
Svyetchin's by reading a page of Condillac;
only his methods were different, more modern.
He was an adroit courtier, a great hypocrite, and
nothing more; he had no special aptitude for
affairs, and no intellect, but he knew how to
manage his own business successfully; no one
wuld get the better of him there, and, to be
sure, that's the principal thing.
Matvy Ilyitch received Arkady with the
good-nature, we might even call it playfulness,
characteristic of the enlightened higher official.
He \vas astonished, however, when he heard
that the cousins he had invited had remained at
home in the country. * Your father was always
a queer fellow/ he remarked, playing with the
tassels of his magnificent velvet dressing-gown,
and suddenly turning to a young official in a
discreetly buttoned-up uniform, he cried, with
an air of concentrated attention, * What ?' The
young man, whose lips were glued together from
prolonged silence, got up and looked in per-
plexity at his chieŁ But, having nonplussed
his subordinate, Matvy Ilyitch paid him no
further attention. Our higher officials are fond
as a rule of nonplussing their subordinates;
tbe methods to which they have recourse to
attain that end are rather various. The follow*